What were they thinking: Apple crazy?

The patent system is being abused and today's blog is directed straight at one of my favorite companies, Apple, who has been filing ridiculous patents...

I normally have to go back in time to find crazy patents, but not today.

The Apple legal department had a field day today (October 4th) in that they had 12 patent filings that were published. Some of these are very deep in nature but two of them – yes it took two patent applications, to cover the notion of “Systems and methods for defining print settings using device movement”. These are 20120250071 and 72

Both 71 and 72 say In some cases, particular motions of the device can be associated with print settings. In a print settings mode, when the electronic device detects a motion of the device, the device can identify a print setting associated with the detected motion. In some cases, a print setting can instead or in addition be defined in response to receiving an input from an input interface, wherein the input is independent from a displayed option. To print the content, the content and the defined print settings can be provided to a printer system.

Below are the first claims of each of them where I have highlighted the text that is different.

The first claim in 71 is 1. A method for defining print settings, comprising: receiving an instruction to print content on a device; determining that a mode for defining print settings for the content is enabled; detecting a recognized movement of the device; identifying a print setting associated with the detected recognized movement; and providing the identified print setting to a printer system.

And the first claim in 72 is 1. A method for defining print settings, comprising: receiving an instruction to print content; determining that a mode for selecting a print setting is enabled; detecting a gesture provided on a touch interface, wherein the gesture is independent from a displayed option; identifying a print setting associated with the detected gesture; and providing the identified print setting to a printer system.

First and foremost, how is this novel? Gestures and movements have been used to set or modify system behavior for a long time, even before it was used in mobile devices. This goes back to stroke interfaces for CAD systems. And second, why does it take a patent, sorry, two patents to tie this sort of action to something as specific as printer settings. This is a total abuse of the patent system!

If you found this article to be of interest, visit EDA Designline where you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of Electronic Design Automation (EDA).

Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for the EDA Designline weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you).

It's like they're implying the existence of a system that has the sole purpose of interpreting kinetic sensor and touchscreen data to modify the print settings. This is obviously absurd - the whole patent was clearly designed to use against competitors that happen to have print settings and gesture recognition on the same device.
I think the problem lies with the nature of the patent office. The job is so boring that anyone with the ability/experience to recognize bogus patents would never work there.